Chicken Garden 2013

The one and only, "Beep"

Lettuce in the chicken garden

Mixed spicy Asian greens in the Chicken Garden

New black silkies!

I like to spoil my chickens.  They deserve it.  They give us a bounty of beautiful, healthful eggs almost all year-round, they clean up the insects and kitchen scraps, add nitrogen to the compost pile and are a joy to watch.  And so, Chicken Garden 2013 begins.  I've netted the same area that I used for the chicken garden last year.  This year, I'm taking more precautions as I actually want to grow some stuff in there for the people too, like corn and pumpkins (lots of pumpkins!) and different squashes.  The chickens can have a variety of different lettuces, peas, beans and sunflowers.  Plus the millet and oats that we planted in there last year has re-seeded itself so there's that too.  I've roped off part of their main pen as well and planted more corn, millet, oats and sunflowers in there.  Hopefully I can keep the sneaky devils out of there until it comes up enough that they won't devastate it in a matter of minutes.

There's quite a few of our feathered friends down there now -- the main flock of 13 (including Bowie the Rooster and our one last "Old Lady" Sex-sal-Link hen who hasn't laid in YEARS)-- Daughter's 5 Buff Orphingtons, the 9 mixed Orphingtons, and the new trio of black silkies.  Of these, we'll be keeping almost all the hens, and Daughter can choose one Buff Rooster to be her breeder-man for next spring.  Of my Birthday Presents of marans and wheaton ameraucanas, we'll keep one blue marans rooster ("Elvis") and the wheaton ameraucana roo ("Sting").  Of the rest of the boys, I may try to sell a couple, as marans are not always easy to come by, or, failing that, apparently they dress out nicely for the table as well.  It looks like, of the 6 ameraucana eggs I purchased, only 2 hatched, but I may have gotten my ultimate wish -- 1 hen and 1 rooster.  I've learned my lesson about counting my hens before they lay, so  the one I believe to be an ameraucana hen we've dubbed "Happy" -- because that's what I'll be if it does turn out to be a hen :)

Happy and Sting